


Just Lookin' At The Sky

by RKMacBride



Category: Alias Smith and Jones
Genre: Gen, Injury Recovery, Optimism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 14:39:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1782589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RKMacBride/pseuds/RKMacBride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>In vino veritas</i>, they say.  Sometimes it's easier to talk over hard things with a drink or two. (A scene from Chapter 3 of <i>Idaho Springs, 1881</i>).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Lookin' At The Sky

          One evening, when Hannibal Heyes returned to Dr. MacKenzie’s house from walking Paula back to her hotel in the center of Idaho Springs, he came into the parlor expecting to find his cousin still reading on the sofa, but Kid wasn’t there. Heyes looked in a few other rooms including the spare room and the doctor’s study, but didn’t find him until he realized that the kitchen door, leading out onto the back porch, was open. He went to look through the screened door, but it was late enough that it was pitch dark outside. “Kid, you out there?”

          “Yeah, I’m here. Come on out.”

          “All right.”  _Something’s eating at him, and I can probably guess what it is. Surprised it took him this long to start worrying about it._ He’d bought a bottle from the saloon on his way back to the house, and now hunted up a couple of glasses in the doctor’s kitchen to go with it. _In vino veritas, they say, even though this isn’t wine but Irish whisky. Seems it’s easier to talk over hard things with a drink or two. _ He pushed open the screen door with his elbow, and stepped out onto the porch, standing still for a few moments while his eyes adjusted to the near-darkness. There was enough light from the rising moon and a few nearby gaslights on Miner Street for him to make out where Kid was. His cousin had maneuvered himself so that he was sitting on the top of the porch steps, with the pair of crutches beside him on his left and his arms resting on his bent left knee. There was still room next to him, so Heyes sat down there himself.  “What’re you doing?”

          Kid shrugged. “Nothin’. Just lookin’ at the sky… Got so I couldn’t stay in those four walls another minute.” Reflexively he ran his left hand through his hair. “Realized the last time I was outside was three weeks ago.” _The night we got here…_

          “Want a drink? Brought us some of the good stuff on my way back.”

          Kid turned toward him and nodded. “Yeah. That’d be good.  Thanks.”

          Heyes poured a drink for each of them. They sat for some time in a companionable silence, listening to the sounds of a spring night in the mountains and watching the stars. In the northeast, the Dipper was about halfway up the sky, handle pointed straight down, and the nearly full moon was up in the southeast. “What’s eatin’ you, Kid?” Heyes asked after a while. “You’ve been kind of quiet all evening.”

          Kid let out a long sigh. “I’ve just been thinking, is all. What if all this—” he said, tapping with his knuckles against the long plaster cast inside the right leg of his grey pants, “…everything the doctor’s done, doesn’t work after all?”

          _I thought that was it._ “Well, you know, it won’t be good as new straight away when that comes off in a month or so. That’s just fixing the bones; there’s a lot of other stuff in there that’s messed up too. Gonna take a while to come right.”

          “Yeah, I know that. Doc told me it might be end of summer before it’ll be like it was before.” He took a deep breath. “But, I keep thinkin’, Heyes… what if it’s not? What if it’s never quite right again?” He paused, and took another swallow from the glass, savoring the taste of the fiery spirit. “And don’t try telling me that couldn’t happen. We both know better.” 

          “You’re right,” Heyes said frankly. He had been expecting this to come up sooner or later. “It could happen that way. But you don’t know that it will. It could be—should be—just fine in a few months like the Doc said.”

          “I know what the doc said. What if he’s wrong? What if it don't heal up right? That’s more likely than not, and you know it. What then?” For active young men like them, the fear of death was nothing compared to this.

          Heyes sipped at his own drink before replying. “All right, Kid,” he said thoughtfully. “Suppose it doesn’t. Dr. Mac does his best, you do your best, and it just doesn’t work quite like before. Just supposing, you understand.”

          “Just supposin’,” Kid agreed. “For the sake of argument.”

          “Well, think about it. If a year from now, you end up with a hitch in your get-along, what would that change?”

          “I don’t know. Guess that’s what worries me. I don’t know.”

          “Well, all I can think of is you might have to fight a little different, and it might slow you down some if we have to run. Now if we were still riding with the gang, it might be a problem. Might make ‘em not take you seriously.”

          “They’d learn different,” Kid growled. “In a hurry.”

          “But that’s all behind us now. So look at the important things. Would it keep you from riding?”

          “Nope.”

          “Would it keep you from shooting?”

          “Nope.”

          “Would it keep you from being the fastest draw in two states?”

          “And a couple of territories…” Kid reminded him with a wry smile.

          “And a couple of territories,” Heyes agreed. “Would it?”

          “Nope.”

          “Would it make Lillie not love you anymore?”

          “Nope.”  After her last letter, Kid had no doubts.  He was as certain of that as of the next sunrise.

          “Would it make trouble between you and me?”

          “Nope. Nothin’ on earth’s gonna do that.”

          Heyes reached to put his hand on his partner’s shoulder. “Then, Kid, I don’t know what you’re worried about. Doesn’t sound to me like it will matter at all, one way or the other.”

          Kid was silent for a minute. “You know, I never thought of it like that...” He finished his drink and leaned back against the wooden post at his back. “Guess you’re right,” he said slowly, feeling a great weight slip off his shoulders. “It really wouldn’t matter.”

          They stayed there, at ease, for once relishing some peace and quiet.  "Y'know," Kid added after a while, "I think I like this town, though I haven't seen a lot of it.  Like to come back here sometime.  Seems like a friendly sort of place."

          "It is," Heyes agreed.  "I like it here too.  And we have an actual paying job starting tomorrow morning.  Should probably turn in."

          "Probably so."  The younger man started to get up.

          "Need a hand?" asked Heyes, reaching to help him.

          Kid shook his head.  "Nope."  With one hand on the stair railing and both crutches in his left hand, he levered himself upright.  "I'm getting good at this.  You could open the door, though."

          "Sure.  Good night, Kid."

          "Night, yourself.  See you at seven."

******************************

**Author's Note:**

> It may seem anachronistic, but it's not -- plaster casts for the treatment of fractures came into use in the 1850s. 
> 
> So the series could have used it in "The Posse That Wouldn't Quit" for Jesse Jordan and been correctly in period (but presumably they didn't because the Jordans live out in the boondocks instead of a few hours from Denver, Boulder, etc.)


End file.
